Times Co. cuts pay for some workers

The New York Times Co. said nonunion employees, including those at The Boston Globe, will be taking a temporary 5 percent pay cut starting in April.

Nonunion employees who receive the pay cuts will get 10 additional paid days off to use before the end of the year. Nonunion employees at the Times Co.'s smaller newspapers, including the Worcester Telegram & Gazette, will have their salaries reduced by 2.5 percent. Those employees will get an additional five days off. The salary reductions will last through the end of 2009.

Arthur Ochs Sulzberger Jr., chairman of the Times Co., and Janet L. Robinson, the company's chief executive, issued a memo on the salary rollbacks. "Given this economic outlook and the changes occurring in the media business, we, regrettably, must take even more steps to lower costs," they stated. "We have been, and continue to, reorganize and reduce our staff, which means we are saying goodbye to many of our close colleagues."

The memo noted that the pay reductions are intended to be temporary. "Next year, we plan to return salaries to their current levels," it said. "Of course, such a decision depends on the state of our business."

The 5 percent pay cut applies to most nonunion employees of the Times Co., including those who work for The New York Times and the corporate staff of the Times Co.

The memo also said that unionized employees in Boston and New York will be asked for wage reductions soon.

Also yesterday, the Globe laid off 20 part-time employees in its newsroom.

"The economy continues to put tremendous stress on our industry," said Bob Powers, Globe spokesman. "This is part of the workforce reduction that we announced earlier in the year with the objective of reducing the staff by 50 employees through voluntary buyouts and layoffs."

The deadline for Globe newsroom staffers to rescind their applications for the voluntary buyout is today. The part-time staffers who lost their jobs will not receive any severance package, and their layoffs were effective yesterday, Powers said.

The New York Times also announced yesterday that it will lay off 100 people on the business side of the newspaper because of declining revenue.